An Ethical Problem Part 16

EXPERIMENT 33. "ON BURNING A PAW UNDER LIGHT ANAESTHESIA, THERE WAS A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 19 MILLIMETRES."

What is "LIGHT anaesthesia"?

It is a condition which a few drops of chloroform will produce; a state in which the loss of consciousness is so slight that any pain may be as keenly felt as if no stupefying agent had been given. What are we to think of a statemnet that in a condition of such light slumber the keenest of pains--THE BURNING OF LIVING FLESH--INVOLVED NO SUFFERING? How can one speak with authority on a matter like this against the evidence of the "one obvious sign" of sensibility? When the paws of the miserable animal were burned, was there not the rise of blood-pressure which indicated suffering? "Pain would cause a rise of blood-pressure," said the professor of physiology of the University of Cambridge. Should we find the significant rise of the blood-pressure in other experiments where fire was used for the "stimulation" of the nerves? Let us see.

EXPERIMENT 2. "On burning a paw, there was a RISE OF PRESSURE OF 10 millimetres. Stimulation of sciatic nerve resulted in A RISE of systolic pressure."

EXPERIMENT 4. "11.45. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE.

" 1.27. Sciatic nerve stimulated; RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE."

EXPERIMENT 6. "Burned a paw. A RISE OF PRESSURE of 4 millimetres resulted."

EXPERIMENT 12. "On burning a paw, there was a RISE OF PRESSURE of 16 millimetres."

EXPERIMENT 14. "On burning a paw, A RISE OF 12 MILLIMETRES, followed by a temporary fall, and then a rise to a higher level.

"On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE OF 2 MILLIMETRES."

EXPERIMENT 15. "11.12. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 8 MILLIMETRES.

"11.36. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 12 MILLIMETRES."

EXPERIMENT 16. "Dog. Condition good.

"11.22. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 22 MILLIMETRES.

"11.33. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF 29 MILLIMETRES.

"11.44. Contrl. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF 24 MILLIMETRES.

"12.26. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 8 MILLIMETRES.

"12.35. On burning a paw, there was A STEADY RISE OF PRESSURE."

EXPERIMENT 22. "Dog. On burning a paw, there was A RISE IN PRESSURE OF 36 MILLIMETRES."

EXPERIMENT 24. "On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE OF 12 MILLIMETRES.

"12.19. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE OF 18 MILLIMETRES."

EXPERIMENT 29. "2.13. Blood-pressure 43. On burning a paw it rose 12 millimetres.

"2.30. On burning a paw, THERE WAS A RISE OF BLOOD- PRESSURE."

"3.6. On burning a paw, THERE WAS A RISE OF BLOOD- PRESSURE."

EXPERIMENT 31. "3.35. On burning a paw, THERE WAS A RISE OF PRESSURE.

"4.14. On burning a paw, THERE WAS A RISE OF PRESSURE."

The foregoing experiments are not quoted in full; in many of them, at intervals, the animals were bled; and these observations of the effects of "burning a paw" were incidental to others. BUT WHY ALL THIS BURNING AND STIMULATION TO PROVE A PHENOMENON SO UNIFORM?

One exceptional experiment must not be overlooked. On one occasion two dogs were vivisected at the same time. At the outset a paw of each dog was burned, causing A RISE of blood-pressure in each case. A little later the sciatic nerve was stimulated:

"11.25. On stimulating the sciatic nerves of each dog, Dog A showed a rising and falling pressure, and Dog B (MORE ETHER WAS GIVEN JUST THEN) showed an initial FALL, and a rise, with a sudden second FALL and a rise.

"11.32. BOTH DOGS WERE DEEPLY ANAESTHETIZED. Dog A: Stimulation PRODUCED NO EFFECT. Dog B: On stimulating the sciatic nerve, there was A FALL OF (BLOOD)-PRESSURE, WITH SLOW RECOVERY."

Here we have recorded by the experimenter himself the difference in the effect of stimulation of nerves in an animal "deeply anaesthetized" and the results produced when the anaesthesia was light.

It has seemed necessary to examine at some length these peculiar experiments. The volumes describing them are not easily to be seen; some appear to be out of print; even Sir Victor Horsley; in whose laboratory in London some of the experiments were performed, confessed that he did not know about the vivisections made in the United States--whether or not they differed from those performed in England.

In the vast number of these vivisections, so far beyond anything previously reported in our country by a single experimenters; in the ingenuity and variety of the mutilations to which the victims were subjected--mutilations and stimulations calculated to cause the extremest agony, unless the anaesthesia was perfect; in the seeming affirmation of absolute insensibility of the wretched animals, although contradicted by the only sign of suffering that in some cases could possibly be seen; in the apparent uselessness of experiments, repeated again and again simply to elicit precisely the same phenomena; above all, in the absence from criticism which some of these "investigations" have managed to secure--all this const.i.tutes a claim for especial consideration. There can be little doubt that they merely ill.u.s.trate what goes on to-day, in many a laboratory in the United States, in secret--as these were made in secret--and untouched by the criticism of the outer world.

Of the absolute uselessness of the vast majority of these experiments much might be said, but it is aside from this inquiry. The question of utility is not here raised. The one matter of inquiry is the existence of pain.

If a vast number of the experiments recorded may have involved the keenest agony of the victims, how are we to explain the repeated a.s.sertions that sensation was absolutely removed? Among antivivisectionists there are those who belive that any human being who could thus subject animals to torment would not find it impossible to deny the fact. Such explanation implies an inveracity which it is not necessary to impute. Mankind is still liable to error; the false deductions of honest men have more than once led to mistaken affirmations of facts; and the most ill.u.s.trious scientist that ever lived can hardly claim infallibility in matters of opinion. A distinguished philosopher and vivisector of three hundred years ago, Rene Descartes, put forth the theory that animals, being without souls, cannot suffer pain, and that their cries under vivisection were simply as the whirring of wheels in an intricate piece of machinery.

We can easily imagine a modern follower of Descartes declaring, as the philosopher would have done, that "NO SUFFERING WAS FELT." A professor of physiology in Harvard Medical School, in course of an address before a State medical society, laid down the theory that "it is ENTIRELY IMPOSSIBLE to draw conclusions with regard to the sensations of animals by an effort to imagine what our own would be under similar circ.u.mstances"; and when a vivisector has reached the stage where he can hold that belief, he may define pain as something pertaining only to human beings, and feel himself justified in declaring that "VIVISECTION OF ANIMALS NEVER CAUSES PAIN," according to his definition of the word. It is well for the world that with this theory the vast majority of thinking men and women have no sympathy whatever. The organized efforts for the protection of animals from cruelty have no meaning if animals are without capacity for that anguish which cruelty implies. We believe, on the contrary, that many, if not all, of the higher species of animals, especially those nearest to man in structure and intelligence, receive, when subjected to the torment of fire or steel, precisely the same sensations that, under a like infliction, a human being would suffer. At any rate, if doubt be possible, should they not have the benefit of it?

If one were asked whether he surely could demonstrate the emotions of any animal made incapable of movement, fixed immovably as in a vice, and subjected to the stimulation of fire, he might confess that inference and not proof was all he could offer. But if one goes farther, and inquires whether in any of the experiments recorded in this chapter there was evoked any sign of sensibility which delicate instruments could detect and record, then, a.s.suredly, we are on safe ground. With startling uniformity we find recorded by the experimenters themselves the fluctuations of blood-pressure following the stimulation of exposed nerves, the crushing of pawes, the burning of the feet, the scalding with boiling water, and other mutilations.

What is their significance? If, as Sir Lauder Brunton tells us, "the irritation of sensory nerves tends to cause contraction of blood- vessels AND TO RAISE THE BLOOD-PRESSURE"; if, as Straus affirms, "PAIN INCREASES BLOOD-PRESSURE," so that in a healthy person the pressure is increased even by pinching of the skin; if, as the physiologist Dalton declares, the irritation of any of the sensitive nerves induces a constriction of bloodvessels indicated by icreased arterial pressure; if the professor of physiology at University College, London, being asked if there were any means, other than the cries or struggles of an animal, by which one could tell if the anaesthesia of an animal was pa.s.sing off, answered with scientific accuracy when he replied, "YAou can tell by the blood-pressure," adding that when sensibility was returning "THE PRESSURE GOES UP"; if it be true, as Professor Dixon, of King's College, London, told the Royal Commissioners, "you can see whether you are giving enough (of the anaesthetic) BY LOOKING AT THE BLOOD-PRESSURE"; if the professor of physiology at Oxford was correct in stating that "A RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE" would tell an experimenter whether or not an animal undergoing vivisection was feeling pain, even though curare had rendered it so helpless that it could not even wink an eye, and that this rise of blood-pressure was the "ONE OBVIOUS WAY"

of determining such sensibility; if we may depend upon the evidence of the professor of physiology at the University of Cambridge, that "PAIN WOULD CAUSE A RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE"; if the agreement of all these scientific authorities concerning the rise of blood-pressure as an indication of pain or returning sensibility can be accepted as scientific truth--then may we not be sure that all of the living animals whose vivisection we have here reviewed, in whose bodies, by fire and steel and every phase of mutilation, there was so constantly elicited this RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE, cannot be said to have attained a painless death? "A man about to be burned under a railway car begs somebody to kill him, yet iti s a statemnet to be taken literally, that a brief death by burning would be considered a happy release by a human being undergoing the experiences of some of the animals that slowly die in a laboratory." So wrote Dr. Bigelow of Harvard University, the most eminent surgeon that New England has yet produced; and were he living to-day, it is not improbable that he would point to some of the experiments here reviewed as examples of the vivisections he intended to condemn. It may be that although the present generation be indifferent, posterity will not condone, and that one day it will hold up some of the experiments of the twentieth century as involving the most prolonged, the most useless, the most terrible, the most cruel torments, that the annals of animal vivisection have ever supplied.

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT IS VIVISECTION REFORM?

Every reflecting man must recognize that the settlement of the vivisection question is a problem that must find its solution at some period in future rather than to-day. But the duty of the hour remains the same. Admitting the existence of the wrong, what can we do to promote reform? What should we ask with the hope that popular judgment will gradually come to approve? How may we be faithful to that ideal of justice toward our inferior brethren, which underlies all humanitarian effort, and lack nothing in fidelity to Science to whose achievements we reverently look for the amelioration of the human race? There are those who would oppose the slightest use of animals for any scientific purpose whatever. There are others who would grant to the vivisector the secrecy and silence, the complete irresponsibility and unbounded freedom which he demands as his right.

There are those to whom a middle course seems the only one leading to ultimate reform. What is the most reasonable att.i.tude toward the laboratory and its claims possible to an honest and clear-minded investigator who is anxious to protect all living creatures from cruel acts, and equally concerned in the conservation of every legitimate privilege which Science can claim?

Such a man stands, let us say, before some great biological laboratory, richly endowed, slendidly equipped, and in the present enjoyment of freedom that is without bounds, and in a secrecy that to-day is as complete as can be imagined. What can he learn with certainty of what goes on within? If he hears claims of superlative gains by the experiments there carried on, how is he to weigh and decide their value? If there is cruelty behind those barred doors, how is he to prevent its constant recurrence? What, in short, should be the reasonable att.i.tude of every intelligent man or woman anxious to know the truth and to promote reform of abuse?

For many years I have insisted upon the necessity for a certain degree of scepticism regarding every claim put forth by the laboratory, unsupported by convincing proofs. We may judge the future by the past. Has there not been evinced a disposition to exaggerate achievement, to deny secrecy, to mislead regarding the infliction of pain? No intelligent person, it seems to me, can study the vidence carefully, year after year, without reaching this att.i.tude of distrust and doubt in a great number of instances. This by no means indicates that every claim of utility is false. A great many statements are accurate. Some claims will be partly true, but magnified by the enthusiasm of youth far beyond what devotion to a strict veracity would require. And some claims may be doubted altogether. It may be doubted whether any reliabce whatever can be placed upon the a.s.sertions or protesting denials of any profession vivisector now drawing a large income from the vivisection of animals, whose interests would possibly be affeted by failure to produce startling results, or by removal of the secrecy that now enshrouds the laboratory. The defenders of absolute licence have not told us the truth on every occasion it has been sought from them, and it must be gained from other sources and by other means.

It would seem, therefore, that the first step toward reform must be the creation of a public sentiment, eager, not so much to pa.s.s condemnation as to know the facts. That the laboratory, of its own accord and initiative, will ever open its doors and give to the world a complete knowledge of what goes on within its sacred precincts, is more than we can expect. The doors will open only when public opinion so demands. The laboratory is perfectly aware of this. With ever yenergy that such consciousness gives, it will fight to keep everything that it now hides from the light of day. Take, for example, the question of vivisection in our inst.i.tutions of learning.

To what extent is experimentation carried on therein merely to demonstrate what every student knows in advance? It would appear that certain lines of experiment are now permitted in such inst.i.tutions which hardly more than a generation ago were condemned as cruel by the medical profession of Great Britain. We ought to inquire why it is that experiments which scarcely thirty years ago were thus condemned, are less abhorrent to-day. The removal of secrecy is the first and most important step toward any true reform.

It is the fashion of certain apologists for vivisection without control to represent their opponents as guided by sentiment alone.

Perhaps it would be well to quote the opinions of one whose work for science should absolve him from that imputation.

One of the most ill.u.s.trious philosphers which America has produced was Dr. William James, professor of psychology in Harvard University. In that inst.i.tution, thirty-five years ago, he was a.s.sistant-professor of physiology, and knew exactly what was done. Harvard made him a professor of philosophy, and then of psychology; Princeton and Oxford and Harvard conferred upon him their highest honours. He lectured both at the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. He wa s a member of various scienfitic societies in France, in Germany, in Denmark, and England. If any man was ent.i.tled by experience and study to speak with some authority concerning vivisection, it was William James of Harvard University.

He knew to what extent the practice of vivisection was carried on.

Calling upon me one day in Cambridge, we compared views, and although he told me of certain experiments he proposed to make the next day, he was emphatic in his denunciation of the atrocities which over and over again were repeated in physiological laboratories throughout the land. The men who raised their voices against all reform were--he said--neither candid, nor honest, nor sincere.

Somewhat later, with some knowledge of his views, he was asked to hold an honorary relation to the Vivisection Reform Society. His reply was so characteristic of the man that it is here given:

"Dear Sir,

"I am made of too unorganized stuff to be a Vice-President of the Vivisection Reform Society, and, moreover, I make it a principle not to let my name appear anywhere where I am not doing practical work.

But I am glad to send you, in answer to your request, a statement of my views, which you are at liberty to publish if you see fit.

"Much of the talk against vivisection is, in my opinion, as idiotic as the talk in defence of it is uncandid; but your Society (if I rightly understand its policy) aims not at abolishing vivisection, but at regulating it ethically. AGAINST ANY REGULATION WHATEVER I understand the various medical and scientific defenders of vivisection to protest. Their invariable contention, implied or expressed, is that it is no one's business what happens to an animal so long as the individual who is handling it can plead that to increase Science is his aim.

"This contention seems to me to flatly contradict the best conscience of our time. The rights of the helpless--even though they be brutes-- must be protected by those who have superior power. The individual vivisector must be held responsible to some authority which he fears.

The medical and scientific men, who time and time again have raised their voices in opposition to all legal projects of regulation, KNOW AS WELL AS ANYONE ELSE does the unspeakable possibilities of callousness, wantonness, and meanness of human nature, and their unanimity is the best example I know of the power of club opinion to quell independence of mind. No well-organized sect or corporation of men can ever be trusted to be truthful or moral when under fire from the outside. In this case, THE WATCHWORD IS TO DENY EVERY ALLEGED FACT STOUTLY; to concede no point of principle, and to stand firmly on the right of the individual experimenter. His being 'scientific'

must, in the eye of the law, be a sufficient guarantee that he can do no wrong."

It may be questioned whether more serious charges against the laboratory have ever been made than are contained in these statements by an expert in vivisection. The man of the world wonders at the unanimity of scienitfic writers of the day in opposing every step tending to reform. Professor James tells us it is due to "the power of club opinion to quell independence of mind." That the professional vivisectors as a body "CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO BE TRUTHFUL WHEN ATTACKED," that they combine "to deny every alleged fact stoutly,"

these are the admissions of an expert experimenter, whose record as a man of science is surely equal if not superior to that of any vivisector in America.

Professor James believed that some abuses had been rectified. He says:

"That less wrong is done now than formerly is, I hope, true. There is probably a somewhat heightened sense of responsibility. There are, perhaps, fewer lecture-room repet.i.tions of ancient vivisections, supposed to help out the professors' dulness with their brilliancy, and to 'demonstrate' what not six of the students are near enough to see, and what all had better take, as in the end they have to, upon trust. The waste of animal life is very likely lessened, the thought for animal pain less shamefaced in the laboratories than it was.

These benefits we certainly owe to the antivivisection agitation, which ,in the absence of producing actualy State regulation, has gradually induced some sense of public accountability in physiologists, and made them regulate their several individual selves.

"But how infinitely more wisely and economically would these results have come if the physiologists as a body had met public opinion half- way long ago, agreed that the situation was a genuinely ethical one, and that their corporate responsibility was involved, and had given up the preposterous claim that every scientist has an unlimited right to vivisect, for the amount or mode of which no man, not even a colleague, can call him to account.[1]

"The fear of State rules and inspectors on the part of the investigators is, I think, well founded; they would probably mean either stupid interference or become a sham. But the public demand for regulation rests on a perfectly sound ethical principle, the denial of which by the scientists speaks ill for either their moral sense or their political ability. So long as the physiologists disclaim corporate responsibility, formulate no code of vivisectional ethics for laboratories to post up and enforce, appoint no censors, pa.s.s no votes of condemnation or exclusion, propose of themselves no law, so long must the antivivisectionist agitation, with all its expensiveness, idiocy, bad temper, untruth, and vexatiousness, continue, as the only possible means of bringing home to the careless or callous individual experimenter the fact that the sufferings of HIS animals are somebody else's business as well as his own, and that there is 'a G.o.d in Israel' to whom he owes account.